Congress Center and Hotel in Palma by Francisco Mangado
20/04/2019.
CSCAE 2017 Award and Nominated EU MIes Award 2019 [Palma] Spain
metalocus, EDWIN GUAILLA
metalocus, EDWIN GUAILLA
Description of project by Francisco Mangado
The project rests on the idea that to work on a lot that is rich and suggestive in its being difficult, such as the one we have here, is to draw up a new urban ‘outline’ for the city. The irregular geometry of the narrow and elongated lot, forming a seafront of nearly 350 meters, refers more to the idea of an urban boundary f huge dimensions that must accommodate a major project with a complex and diverse program.
The building looks toward the sea, and this seaward looking is summed up in a thick facade—five meters wide and erected with techniques of naval engineering—that besides keeping out direct sunlight contains the stairs and other elements connecting the different spaces and programs. As you go up the stairs, you see the sea through huge glass panes. This facade is like a town wall with a path, dense but also open, and in its thickness, through ambiguous spaces that cannot definitively be considered interior or exterior, it is confused with the promenade itself.
The ‘alter ego’ is the north facade, whose thickness is formed by the building’s more ‘server’ spaces. The result is a comb-shaped double scheme: in functional terms, public to the south and private to the north. Inside, different congress and exhibition halls follow one another. These are large but volumetrically expressive spaces, with voids around them that have hanging platforms and catwalks for looking out to the exterior. On the raised floor, connected to the hotel by a footbridge that serves to unify the complex, are the more everyday uses, the smaller convention rooms, and restaurants, along with a large terrace that, viewed in perspective, can be taken to be a prolongation of the sea.
Francisco Mangado, (Navarra, 1957), is an architect from the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, where he has been a professor since 1982. He has been a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at the Yale University, visiting professor at the EPF Polytechnic School of Lausanne, Baird and Gensler guest professor at Cornell University and visiting professor at the Polytechnic of Milan.
From his works they emphasize the Palace of Congresses and Auditorium of Pamplona "Baluarte" (2003), the Field of Soccer of Palencia (2006), the Municipal Center of Exhibitions and Congresses of Ávila (2009), the Museum of Archeology of Vitoria (2009 ), the Spanish Pavilion for the Zaragoza International Exhibition (2008), the BBAA Museum of Asturias in Oviedo (2015) and the recently inaugurated Palau de Congresos de Palma de Mallorca (2016) and the New Venue Building of Norvento Enerxia in Lugo (2017). Currently he develops his activity in several countries.
Thanks to this professional work he has received, among others, the Andrea Palladio Architecture Award, the Architecture FAD, the CEOE prize, the Construmat Architecture Award, the Fernando García Mercadal Architecture Prize, the Asturian Architecture Prize, the "Giancarlo Ius Gold Medal" awarded by the International Union of Architects, the Copper in Architecture Award, the RIBA EU Award, the Spanish Architecture Award 2009 and the RIBA for International Excellence, among others.
In 2011 he was named "International Fellow" of the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) and in 2013 honorary member of the AIA (American Institute of Architects). In November 2016, the Berlin Academy of Arts grants Francisco Mangado the Berlin Art Prize-Architecture Prize 2017 in recognition of his work.
In 2008 he founded the Architecture and Society Foundation, which works to favor the interaction of architecture with other disciplines of creation, thought and economy, which has received the CSCAE gold medal (Higher Council of Architects of Spain) 2015
In July 2015 he was appointed General Coordinator of Biennials and under his coordination was awarded to the Spanish Pavilion the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennial in May 2016.